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This bathroom reveal is so bittersweet. It means means that I have one less room to design in our house. Kev told me once I finish our house, I have to use someone else’s money if I want to keep designing spaces. Ha! On the other hand, now that the house feels more like a home and less like a project, we’ve been filling it with our favorite people. That’s a really good thing. Now on to the Minimal Masculine Master Bathroom reveal.

The house had great bones thanks to our builder and designer, Brownsmith Restoration. But our budget didn’t allow us to really design out each of the rooms. So we’ve slowly finished them out as we could (and as inspiration struck). Our builder came up with a genius layout to the master bathroom, which is often one open room without much privacy. He divided the square-sized room with a wall. At the front of the wall is the vanity where we get ready. On the other side of the room is the shower and the toilet. The toilet is sits in a tiny nook at the back of the bathroom, just behind the shower. It’s as private as it can be without adding the cost of door and closing off the space. We love it.

It’s also worth noting, we decided to forgo a tub in the bathroom as neither of us are bath people. Hal’s bathroom has a shower/bath combo, so should the desire arise, we aren’t completely tub-less.

For the last 2.5 years we’ve been in the house, this room has looked so unfinished. Probably because it was. After finishing the design of the master bedroom, inspiration struck for this connecting bathroom. Though it’s funny, because all the inspiration for this bathroom was pulled from around the house. I’m a believer in repeating elements throughout a house in order to keep it cohesive, so we did. I pulled a lot of elements from the master bedroom—the walnut tones, kilim rugs, brassy accents, and overall masculine vibe. I stole the shiplap from the dining room and the matte black and buffalo check accents from around the house. We repeated the use of subway tiles but went extra large in here.

Like the bedroom, I wanted this space to feel special, like a boutique hotel. Not the formal type, the collected, eclectic type. The mix of metals (matte brass and black), vintage art, and toothsome towels and rug helped to pull that look together.

The Vanity

When you’re designing a new house, a minimal house at that, you really have to infuse it with character to keep it from looking like a generic white box. So for large pieces like the kitchen island and the bathroom vanities, I wanted to choose something closer to a piece of furniture—old and built with character. But unless you have quite a bit of time on your hands to find a vintage piece that will fit the space perfectly, you have to go to plan B. I found our plan B on Wayfair and fell in love! I changed out the pulls and our builder added the counter. (See a full list of sources below.)

To backsplash or not? Well, it depends on the look you’re going for. We actually removed our backsplash while finishing out the space. It didn’t read like a piece of furniture, my original intention. Practically speaking, our backsplash wasn’t protecting the wall. I don’t think it ever received a spot of water. To remove, see this tutorial from Young House Love.

Artwork

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Rugs and wall hangings are the hardest design choices. I like to find vintage, one-of-a-kind artwork while thrifting, which just takes a bit of time to find the right piece. For high-quality, framed pieces, I often look at Rejuvenation’s Antiques & Vintage section, which is where I found the art for the vanity area (see full list of sources below).

I took to making some of my own art for the back half of the bathroom—a simple Bathroom Counter Remnants drawing. If you’d like one for your bathroom, I’m selling a digital download here. It prints off nicely even on a home printer!

Shiplap in the Bathroom

This room needed an extra dose of character. We landed on shiplap over a paint color. We’re not nearly as handy as we think we are, so we hired this job out. We originally tried to use bender board after seeing Jenny use it here, but had a hard time finding it locally. Our contractor ended up using 4″ lattice boards. They primed and painted them (front and back) first to protect the boards from moisture. To install, they used liquid nails and a nail gun, and then did a final coat of paint.

PS—If you look really close on the seam, you’ll notice some cracking. Living in Minnesota with extreme temperatures on either end, our house majorly expands and contracts throughout the year. Cracks in the winter are gone by summer, and, if not, I pull out the caulking gun.

There’s that tiny, semi-private bathroom nook.

Towels

I feel a little strange dedicating a whole paragraph to towels, but these waffle bath towels are a game changer. They’re extremely lightweight, which was a bit concerning to me at first. But they are super absorbent and dry quickly. And because of that, they don’t smell musty, ever! I can’t say that of any other towel I’ve owned.

The Shower

We went with an open shower concept. I love the look visually, but it can be a tad chilly in the winter. Would a door solve that problem? Maybe. I’m pretty sure a door was way outside of our price range while building, and now I’m sorta set on the minimal look. I’ll update you if we ever change our mind on this topic.

I walk in this room now, and it no longer looks like a project. That’s a really good thing. On to tackling the laundry room. Talk about an unfinished room…

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24 Responses to "Minimal Masculine Master Bathroom"

It is absolutely beautiful and flows so perfectly with the rest of your home! I love all of it! I was wondering if you’d ever consider sharing even a rough floor plan of the bathroom or the rest of your home.

This is such a huge compliment! Thank you! Our builder now sells our house plans, so we haven’t published the layout anywhere. The bathroom floor plan is basically a backwards “C”, the “c” being the walking area. You can see the layout best on the 6th image down. The bathroom nook area is created by the shower. On the other side of the shower head wall is the bathroom. I may do a walk through on Instagram soon, but hopefully this helps!

Thank you so much for sharing! I’m very interested to see more of the layout. Will you please share a walk through on instagram stories or maybe a drawing of the layout? I’m hoping to see how it all works together as it sounds really functional!

Hi Amy! Our builder now sells our house plans, so we haven’t published the layout anywhere. The bathroom floor plan is basically a backwards “C”, the “c” being the walking area. You can see the layout best on the 6th image down. The bathroom nook area is created by the shower. On the other side of the shower head wall is the bathroom. I may do a walk through on Instagram soon, but hopefully this helps!

We bought a fixer upper 6 years ago and this is finally the tear we begin the fixing! Thank you so much for the wonderful photos and comments they help me have ideas on what I want to do where. I was thinking of tile in the kitchen and I may be convinced of it now.

Your home and bathroom are beautiful. However, you lost me at $79 towels. I love your style and would be interested to see how you would design and style a home with items that you personally purchase. When items that are “generously provided” are promoted in blogs it just becomes an advertisement (in my opinion). Most people are on a budget that is far less than a Rejuventation budget. I also notice that the items you purchased personally are from target, amazon, thrifted, etc. I don’t know… it just seems out of touch or maybe I am not your target audience.

Hi Al! Thanks for your comment. $79 would have lost me at a point in my life too. But after buying so many cheap, poorly made towels, I would 100% buy these towels with my own money. (I’ve had to donate pile after pile of musty towels.) I wouldn’t have recommended them otherwise. There have been a couple products brands have provided that I have not talked about because they perform so poorly. I wont recommend things I don’t love. I also understand how strange it is that a brand provides product and at times payment (not in this case). I’ve wrestled with it personally as a blogger as blogs have transitioned from hobby blogs (100% paid for by the blogger) to business blog (brand partnerships). I was late to the game but made the decision to hang up my graphic design business and commit fully to blogging 2 years ago. A general note about my home posts: we’ve made the decision to make long-term investments in our home, which means we spend a little more. I also like to keep less things around, which frees up a little budget to invest in other things. But I am a huge believer in pairing high-priced items with lower-priced items when designing a room, something I’ve talked about in a couple posts. I 100% understand that all of my decisions will not resonate with everyone. I’ve lost sleep (and my sanity) trying to do that. And that’s something I would not recommend for anyones mental health.

I love this bathroom!! I have been pondering over a master bath for a couple months now. and this layout is perfect!! Now I will patiently wait for your laundry room reveal… because I could use some ideas there too! Our remodel won’t be for awhile, but nice to have ideas ahead of time! I enjoy your style and layout of your home so much!

Love your new bathroom. I am just beginning a redo of mine. We are taking out a tub and replacing it with a shower. Would love to have it walk-in like yours without a door. I am wondering how long your shower space is and if that is a possibility for mine.

Hi Aisha! The white used throughout the house in Benjamin Moore Decorators White. The first white they tried looked pink! I always add the disclaimer to try whites out in your space first because they can yield very different tones. Our white is a touch on the warm side.

Love how this turned out – the vibe is timeless. I have a silly question, how did you fold the rug to fit? I just ordered a kilim from Rejuvenation for our master bathroom and it’s a smidge too wide. This isn’t a deal breaker but I’m curious how you did it!

Kilim rugs, especially this one, fold well. I literally folded about 3-inches on both sides and it flattened out nicely! I’m going to add a thick rug pad down the center between the folds to make it extra even, but it’s hardly noticeable. I was surprised how well it worked!

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